About a year an a half ago, Google outed Microsoft for tracking click data on Google through Internet Explorer. It was a big deal and it hurt the reputation of both Microsoft and even Google – I get into that over here.
That being said, despite this happening well over a year ago. Google says Bing is still doing it!
A Hacker News thread has Google’s lead of search spam, a Google distinguished engineer, saying:
Last time I checked, it looked like Bing was still using clicks on Google search results as a signal in Bing’s rankings.
Exactly when was the last time he checked, I am not sure but to say that, I suspect he meant some time within the past few months.
Are you shocked Microsoft is still doing this?
Or is it a valid search quality metric to track and use for Bing to improve their algorithms?
I guess Microsoft never said they would stop tracking clicks from Google’s search results.
Forum discussion at Hacker News.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for kids cheating
